more dumps and bears

That sounds like the wild wild west, everybody driving their garbage down to the dump.  I imagine they waited until they had a full truckbed's worth, and that must have been paradise for the local critters.

I just saw a movie, Sweet and Lowdown where the star, a jazz guitarist, liked to go down to the dump and shoot rats, and seems to me that I have heard of this in more than one movie so I guess that is where the no shooting comes in.  I dunno isn't shooting rats a lot like shooting kangaroos in that Australian movie?  Can't say that I approve.

Those big old smelly garbage trucks still lumber down the alleys of Chicago.  Come to think of it they are not that smelly anymore, and nor are the alleys.  I think that's because now we have these huge hard rubber (or something) garbage cans which hold a lot of garbage I guess so that it does not fall out of the can.  At night they look like burly sentinels keeping watch on what goes on in the back of the backyard.

In Champaign the city didn't pick up the garbage, you had to pay somebody to come by and get it and if you didn't pay they didn't come, and I remember more than once waiting till dark and gathering all the garbage together and running down the alley and dumping it into a neighbor's dumpster.  Exciting times.

Speaking of exciting times back when I was in high school we would throw all our wet garbage in one can and all the paper stuff in another and then I would get to take all the paper garbage and put it in a big wire can and burn it.  Good times for a boy in his early teens.

Hibernation, you wonder where that comes from.  Well, nothing much going on foodwise in the wintertime, better to conserve your resources. But all those physical changes, but Mother Nature plays the long game and in all those years there is plenty of time to tweak anything into fine working order.

But I am struck by Mama bear.  Waking up to little ones suckling on what little sustenance she has after a long winter's nap, and taking them out into the wild, showing them all these bear things that they will have to know, displaying that wild protectiveness which has probably taken the lives of many hunters and innocent trekkers wanting nothing more than to see the glory of nature, and then just letting them go and they never phone her late on a Sunday or send her a Mother's day card full of hearts and gooey prose.  She just goes on to make more baby bears.

And Papa bear, what a louse huh, find em, fuck em, forget em, and he's off to do something stupid like stick his big fat nose into a beehive, or something shooting rats stupid like killing his own cubs.  I think his thinking there is that who knows really who is the daddy of those cubs and with them out of the way perhaps Mama will see him in a more tender way.  I dunno, why doesn't he try chocolates and roses?